One million dollars in prize money up for grabs at Transavia and Long Beach Grand Slams

With US$1 million in prize money up for grabs, the Long Beach Grand Slam promises to be as exciting as ever this year

Lausanne, Switzerland, April 7, 2014 – This
year’s Long Beach and Transavia Grand Slams just got more interesting with the
historic announcement that the two events will carry a pot of $1 million in
prize money.

For the first time ever in the FIVB’s
history, two of the Grand Slams on the beach volleyball calendar will have a
prize pot of $1 million, while the other eight will feature a total purse of
$800,000 – nearly double the prize money of $440,000 on offer for Grand Slams
in 2013.

Never before has such high prize money been
distributed in a beach volleyball tournament with the winners receiving a
cheque of $70,000 and runners-up $52,000 in both the men’s and women’s
tournaments of these Grand Slam events.

This year’s Transavia Grand Slam will be
the first time that multiple locations will be used for pool play rounds in a
FIVB World Tour Grand Slam event. The Hague Beach Stadium in Scheveningen will
be the main venue, while additional pool play will be held during the week in
Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Apeldoorn – the four cities that will also host the
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in 2015.

The prize pot is also a boost for the
organisers of the Long Beach Grand Slam, which returns for the second straight
year for the double-gender FIVB Long Beach Grand Slam after a decade away.

“This is a momentous year for beach
volleyball and we want to support our players as well as to help grow beach
volleyball," said FIVB Beach Volleyball Commission President Vicente
Araujo. “The increase in prize money will help to raise the profile of the game
and will only serve to strengthen our sport over the long term.”

The FIVB has also confirmed that Chennai,
situated on the south east coast of India, will host the ninth Open event on
the 2014 beach volleyball calendar from November 25 to 30. While this is the
city’s first time hosting an FIVB Open event, Chennai has held FIVB Challenger
Beach Volleyball tournaments in 2008 and 2010. More recently Chennai was the venue
for the Asian Beach Volleyball Championship, which were held there in May last
year.

The dates of the La Reunion Open have now
also been confirmed by the organisers, with the second and final tournament for
men only this year set to take place from December 3 to 7.

A record $10.2m in prize money, 10 Grand
Slams, an inaugural FIVB Grand Slam Final and 11 Open tournaments are the
highlights of this year’s record-breaking 2014 beach volleyball calendar.

With the aim of providing athletes with
more opportunities to participate, the FIVB confirmed a total of nine
double-gender Grand Slams - with another Grand Slam to be added - for the 2014
season, supplemented by a further six double-gender and five single-gender Open
tournaments, which represents a significant increase on the 10 Grand Slams and
four Open tournaments which featured along with the World Championships in 2013
and carried total prize money of $6.4m. The previous record prize money for a
season was $7.5m in 2011.